The near-thousand strong parade of Ferrari sportscars that took to Silverstone earlier this month has been confirmed as a new Guinness World Record.

In an attempt to beat the previous mark of 490 Ferraris all on the same racetrack set at Japan’s Fuji Speedway in 2008, Ferrari Racing Days sent out a call to owners of the iconic sportscar to descend on Silverstone on September 15 to see if they could beat that mark for a new world record.

The attempt proved hugely successful with a mammoth 964 cars turning up at the home of the British GP. Organisers report that at one point when all cars were moving round the 3.66-mile circuit simultaneously, there was less than 250m separating the lead car from the tail of the parade – meaning the entire track was covered with Ferraris, three wide across the track.

The new World Record was duly ratified at the end of last week, the third time in five years the mark has been broken after an initial attempt in 2007 saw 385 Ferraris parade around Silverstone.

Felipe Massa led this month’s parade round, the Brazilian behind the wheel of a 458 Spider, while Ferrari’s veteran development test driver Marc Gene was also on hand to provide expert tuition to drivers taking part in the F1 Clienti programmes.

Ferrari donated £5 for every car in the parade to the British charity BEN, which supports employees from the motor industry and their family.

I'm surprised that something like this would qualify as a Guinness world record. With this silly exercise as a precedent, you could then make up any odd world record, for example the most Fords in a parade, or the largest parade of people carrying iphones. I'm sure Ferrari gave a big check to Guinness for this advertisement, but it's just plain silly and stupid, and beneath the level of what I expect from Guinness.